Hey BW,

A blighted ovum would not have had a heartbeat, it is where the "life support" system develops and the baby does not - there is still a baby of course, it just doesn't go on past a few cells. A missed miscarriage is when the pregnancy is not successful but your body fails to expel it. As said abive basically.

I read, after my first loss, that when an embryo dies it regresses in size/development by a day every day from when it passes. So if you have a scan at 10 weeks and the baby has no heartbeat and is measuring 8 weeks it is likely it would have stopped developing a week ago. I don't know if this is common knowledge and unfortunately i can't find anything online, but at some point i knew this to be true, so i'll keep looking. This means it is very possible to see a heartbeat and then a few weeks later see nothing at all, if the baby passes soon after the first scan.

I'm sorry, this is probably very painful for you and all the other women out there who've been through this. But it was something i thought was important to know, it might help you pinpoint when and possibly why caterpillar had to go, if it is something that could have been prevented.

Bx